Verstappen and Bearman get breathing room as FIA penalty points roll off before Brazil
Max Verstappen and Oliver Bearman can finally unclench. A quiet shuffle of the FIA’s superlicence spreadsheet has knocked both drivers a safer distance away from the dreaded 12-point race ban threshold ahead of this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
Verstappen, who’s had to tiptoe through recent rounds after hovering a single point from a ban mid-season, now sits on six penalty points. Bearman, who’d spent a chunk of his rookie campaign walking the tightrope, drops to eight.
It’s the familiar churn of the system. Drivers who rack up 12 penalty points in any 12-month window cop an automatic one-race ban. Kevin Magnussen was the first to trigger it under the rules — introduced in 2014 — last season. And for a while this year it looked like the reigning four-time world champion might become the highest-profile test subject yet.
Verstappen’s near-miss came after that flashpoint with George Russell in Spain back in June, which earned him three penalty points and took him to 11. He then had to drive with the handbrake half-on in Canada and Austria. Two points from the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix (the Lando Norris clash) expired at the end of June, and two more fell off after Mexico — a year on from forcing Norris off track there. As of today, the single point he picked up for a Virtual Safety Car infringement in the 2024 Interlagos sprint has also dropped out of the 12-month window.
Add it up and the number next to Verstappen’s name looks a lot less ominous. One more point is due to expire on December 1, the day after the penultimate round in Qatar, further easing the pressure as the season winds down.
There’s a neat bit of symmetry to the timing. Verstappen returns to Brazil exactly a year after one of the most overpowering wins of his career — a wet-weather masterclass from 17th on the grid in 2024 — but this time without the cloud of a looming ban. Max at Interlagos with nothing to lose is rarely dull viewing.
Bearman, meanwhile, has been learning the hard way about F1’s finer print. The Haas rookie reached 10 points after Monza, where he collected two for causing a collision with Williams’ Carlos Sainz. The two points he was given for clashing with then-Williams driver Franco Colapinto at last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix have now timed out, dropping him to eight.
That’s still close enough to be uncomfortable. Four of Bearman’s points came in one go at Silverstone for a red-flag pit entry crash, with another two chalked up in Monaco for overtaking Sainz under red in second practice. The raw speed is not in question — his fourth place in Mexico last month matched Haas’s best-ever result — but there’s no hiding from the maths. Eight points is four away from a weekend on the sofa.
For the record, Verstappen now sits fourth on the current disciplinary list behind Bearman, Lance Stroll (seven) and Liam Lawson (six). It’s not exactly a chart anyone’s proud to lead. But Interlagos isn’t a bad place to arrive with a cleaner slate. The circuit’s short lap and opportunistic braking zones tend to invite skirmishes; the race has a habit of snowballing from small moments. A driver trying to save his licence can go from cautious to compromised very quickly.
That was the undertone through the middle part of Verstappen’s season, when every wheel-to-wheel move came with an extra calculation. Red Bull managed it well — pick your fights, leave the messy ones — but you could sense the frustration simmering when the risks outweighed the rewards. Now, with the tally halved and one more point set to disappear after Qatar, the champion is free to lean into the edges again.
Bearman’s picture is more delicate. Haas will be thrilled with the Mexico result, and they’ll want the same fearlessness in Brazil without the overreach that’s cost him. The margins for rookies are thin at the best of times; when eight points are already on the board, they get thinner still.
If there’s a takeaway here, it’s how ruthlessly the penalty system shapes decision-making at the sharp end. The calendar is long, the racing’s tight, and the 12-month window never stops moving. This week, that motion finally tilted in favor of Verstappen and Bearman. How they use the leeway at Interlagos will be worth watching.
